YONANAS

COMMERCIAL DISPENSING MACHINE

Dessert isn’t supposed to be healthy. It’s something we’ve all come to accept, but Healthy Foods LLC has been defying dessert by offering in-home dessert makers Yonanas, a soft-serve ice cream treat that only uses frozen fruit. Yonanas has found success in being both a healthy and delicious treat, and Healthy Foods LLC wanted to take that success to the next level and into the global, commercial domain. Our internal engineering team knew they could meet the goals of building a commercial Yonanas-dispensing machine that would quickly serve the fruit, be easily serviceable, and meet the global commercial food equipment certifications.

EVERY PIECE MATTERS

The road to production spanned from ideation to a fully engineered production prototype. Our prototype specialists worked closely with internal teams throughout the whole process as the product was designed, engineered, built, and tested to ensure the machine would dispense Yonanas without failure. The team sweat every detail over the machine’s 200+ parts to ensure optimum performance, from the cutter head to the electrical system. The finished production machine delivers excellent results, combining both the highest quality fruit texture possible, and an incredible speed of delivery.

COLLABORATIVE SUPPORT

Before diving into engineering, our team built a proof-of-concept prototype of the machine which helped determine the overall mechanics and parameters of the system. It consisted of as many readily available components as possible to expedite the creation process. The frame was constructed of 80/20 aluminum extrusion and machined billet aluminum plate. The purpose of the proof-of-concept prototype was to create a flexible machine that allowed the engineering team to quickly quantify machine variables, primarily those associated with the cutter head, such as speed and geometry of the cutter head, feed rate of the plunger, and fruit temperature.

After reaching a successful early proof of concept model, we began to make a looks-like, works-like functional prototype which was used for testing and research to further refine the machine. We CNC machined cutter heads, 3D printed housings, urethane cast parts for internal mechanisms and seals, vacuum formed the safety shields, bent sheet metal for the frame, fabricated electronic breadboards to develop safety sensors, and even painted the graphics. After a year of developing and sourcing parts, our shop delivered stunningly realistic prototypes that were assembled to make the prototype operate and appear indistinguishable from a production product. To complete the machine, the Yonanas fruit packaging was designed to incorporate seamlessly. This involved designing several package variations, engineering the package ceiling, all while providing a low-cost manufacturing solution.

Through several prototype iterations and lots of problem solving on issues such as ease of cleaning, motor-tuning, and dispensing reliability, the result was a robust and reliable machine. Two years of meticulous development, collaboration with Healthy Foods LLC and successful prototypes laid the foundation for a profoundly seamless transition into production. The first commercial Yonannas-dispensing machine was shipped to cafes and restaurants across the world with an overwhelmingly positive response to the convenience and ease of use of the new machine.